From the “I used to be able to speak English” file…
1)“I have the ability to speak English”
2)“He has ability for languages.”
“He has the ability of speaking English.”
He has great ability in English.’
#1 is correct; I’m having a brain-freeze on the rest.
Why use any of them? They’re all wordy and awkward.
Why not:
He speaks English fluently.
He speaks English well.
He speaks English.
He speaks many languages (fluently/well).
He’s good with languages.
He has a knack for languages.
He’s multilingual.
He’s a polyglot.
Etc.
Because I was marking an essay that had the sentence “Parents want their children to have the ability of speaking English.”
I know “have the ability to speak” or “be able to speak” English are better; I want to know if the sentence is actually wrong.
Yes, the sentence is wrong … it should be to speak …
ability + of refers to whom the ability belongs. You can use “power of” + power, but the word ability does not work that way.
If you do a Google search on “ability of”, the majority of results will be ability of + person with ability. There are some results that contain “ability of” + ability, but many of these seem to come from sources with questionable reliability or that exhibit stilted language. It can be safely assumed that these instances are mistakes.
ability to speak= 1.87 million hits.
ability of speaking=14,500 hits (and interestingly enough, this thread showed up as the tenth result 
)
ability of speech=10,400 hits, with the majority being “ability of speech recognizers” or something like that rather than just “ability of speech”.
ability of speaking English=1,770 hits, #1 hit being this thread
ability to speak English=158,000 hits
At the very least there is a very strong preference for one over the other insomuch that your use would be considered odd and awkward, even if not technically absolutely wrong.
[quote=“MikeN”]From the “I used to be able to speak English” file…
1)“I have the ability to speak English”
2)“He has ability for languages.”
“He has the ability of speaking English.”
He has great ability in English.’
#1 is correct; I’m having a brain-freeze on the rest.[/quote]
Ability is a noun. This is why we can say “He has the basketball ability of M. Jordan.” We can’t say say, “He has the ability of speaking English.” We can say, “He has the ability to speak English.”
He is subject, Has is the verb, The Ability is the Object of the very has, To Speak English is an infinitive phrase modifying the object.
In the incorrect sentence:
He is subject, Has is the verb, The Ability is the object of the verb has, Of Speaking English is a prepositional phrase. Prepositional Phrases shoud modify a verb. In this sentence, the prepositional phrase is modifying the noun ability, which is not correct English grammar.
In the sentence, “He has the basketbal ability of M. Jordan.” Of is used similarly to “de” in Chinese or “no” in Japanese. It shows ownership. As in, “Baby of mine.” This fragment can be equally stated as, “My baby.” So, the sentence, “He has the basketball ability of M. Jordan.” can be equally stated as, “He has M. Jordan’s basketball ability.”
Another problem with the construction, “He has the basketball ability of M. Jordan.” Is that, though techinacally correct, it is passivly constructed, or uses passive voice. This is why it sounds awkward and causes the brain freeze that allows incorrect grammar to sound like it might be okay.
Here is a more simple example of active v/s passive voice:
Active: The boy hit the ball.
Passive: The ball was hit by the boy.
Both sentences are correct, but the passive voice sentence is needlessly complex. This can cause confusion, especially for language learners.
I hope this helps.